Fake Maltese passports seized in Bangkok

Several fake Maltese passports were among a large quantity of such passports seized by the police in Bangkok on Saturday evening.

The counterfeit passports were from a number of countries including the United States, New Zealand, France, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Malta. They were allegedly sold to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, the Bangkok police said.

The story was featured prominently in yesterday's edition of the Bangkok Post. According to the newspaper, Mohammed Karim, a 56-year-old from Bangladesh, was nabbed in a Bangkok townhouse late on Saturday by the police who found a sophisticated passport-making operation and more than 1,000 finished and unfinished documents.

Police Major-General Chaktip Chaichinda said the man had admitted making the fake passports, adding that his partner, a Myanmar national, escaped arrest. The police seized two computers, a scanner, three printers and rubber stamps of several countries.

Passport fraud is a common problem in Thailand, where the police seized 100 fake documents last year.

Contacted to confirm whether the Maltese authorities were looking into the matter, the Foreign Affairs Ministry passed the buck to the Justice Ministry who, in turn, referred The Times to the Infrastructure, Transport and Communications Ministry which is, ultimately, responsible for passports. Efforts to contact a spokesman for this ministry proved unsuccessful.